Top o' the rack (not the Furman, haha):
It's the older 24 bit/48k Crane Song HEDD! I've seriously searched eBay, the Gearslutz classifieds, and Craigslist for the past
year trying to find one, so when this one surfaced on eBay I threw a pretty tall bid at it to make sure it didn't get away from me. Ironically, the dude selling it was seriously about 15 miles from me, just a ferry ride away really. Anyway, I scored it for $1,325 plus shipping, which is a little more expensive than I've seen 'em go for, but is FAR better than dropping $3,620 on a new 192k version, which I have absolutely no need for, being that I work in 44.1. The only other thing the old version lacks is the "Tube" knob, which I'm sure is a great process, but I can deal without it considering the price jump it would take! Anyway, this thing slays in the mastering chain. You can push it very hard before audible clipping occurs. The "Triode" process didn't sound right on the mix I ran through it, even in moderation it just sort of made it sound gritty, but the "Pentode" process sounded cool, although it was very subtle. I ran a mix through it that I had originally been mastering through the Finalizer, and I ended up just dropping the Finalizer entirely...the loudness I had been getting from the Finalizer was very easy to attain with just the HEDD (-8dB-ish), and the whole mix just sounded more alive and open without the Finalizer touching it. Pretty cool!
